A12 Who Can Own the Stars?

by Mackey Chandler

  When Dan leaned out the open hatch of the hold and called, “Yo?” Gunny tossed the package to him sideways. Hoffman took a step back in horror and watched the package make its leisurely journey to the hold where Dan snatched it.

  His concern amused Gunny. The scan showed a substantial tube well packed. If it survived being slammed into the Martian surface and a kilometers long slide across the boulder-strewn plain to a violent impact with a mountain, a little jostling wasn’t going to hurt it. Not even if they dropped it.

  “These are the apps to control the machines,” Gunny said, waving at the pair of low-slung vehicles that looked like off-road quad machines with no saddle. “They will run on suit controllers, pads, or even high-end spex,” Gunny told him. He offered Hoffman two memory chips.

  Hoffman took them but frowned at them in distress.

  “We aren’t allowed to plug outside memory into shared devices,” Hoffman said.

  “No skin off my nose,” Gunny assured him. “Make one of your IT guys walk out here with an air-gapped hand pad to verify them for all I care. Go ahead and mount your ladder and board them just like last time,” Gunny told him. It went smoothly without needing to say another word. He did notice they had exactly as many as fit the last trip with no extra. Not that he cared. By the time Gunny rode the crane hook up, the rover was well away headed back to their habitat, so there was no rush to get to their seats and lift. The new machines were following so Hoffman had either decided to use the app or gotten an OK.

  Johnson was explaining what his passengers could expect. “I’m not going to pressurize the hold. We aren’t going to be in transit long enough to pump it back down even if I started on doing that right away.”

  “Oh, Thank God,” a woman’s voice said on the suit frequencies, and she started those deep wrenching sobs one seldom hears.

  “I told you to come,” a male voice said earnestly, trying to calm her.

  “Ma’am, I have no idea what I said to upset you,” Johnson said confused.

  “You didn’t upset me. You relieved me,” she said. “If you pressurized the hold, I would have figured you were going to get high enough and open the hatch to blow us out. Several of us have tried to send messages to our colleagues who left on your last flight and none of us have been able to get a response. I only came because it seemed to at least give me a chance. Staying didn’t seem like any chance at all.”

  The man spoke up again, but addressing Johnson, not his friend.

  “We’ve had two people killed under very unlikely circumstances and three who have just vanished and nobody in authority will discuss what happened to them. I’ve been scared that I marked myself to be disappeared for asking about them.”

  “I assure you, nobody intends you any physical harm,” Johnson said. “I can’t speak to how your own countries will treat you and what your political or financial status will be once you are repatriated. If you have any concerns about that you are welcome to return to Home or the Moon with us rather than continue on to Earth. A couple of your people did that when we took the last group back.”

  “Do you know how that worked out for them?” another voice asked.

  “I’ve no idea,” Johnson admitted. “It wasn’t something I’d be concerned about. We always need skilled people. There’s a constant labor shortage but in honesty a concurrent housing shortage and high prices. It’s always like that in a boom economy.”

  “I can deal with that better than going back to Austria,” the new voice said. “From what my brother in law said it’s a continuing slump there.”

  “Just speak up to my guys unloading you, and don’t exit when we dock,” Johnson advised him. “Now, I need to lift this thing before they wonder why we aren’t leaving and come back to check. I’ll give you further instructions underway. Hang on, I’m lifting at twice Mars standard. I know you folks are used to weighing less.”

  Chapter 7

  Arlo looked at Eileen with genuine shock when she asked why he didn’t use his privilege with his primary customers to get horses for them.

  “You have no idea how valuable a horse is. I will borrow one when there is need, but I’d never think to take one where it might come to harm. I’d rather catch a bullet and hope to survive than have one shot from under me. Whenever I do borrow one, it’s like having the loan of a rich man’s Ferrari before The Day. You’re constantly cautious and aware you don’t have the means to replace it if something happens. It’s not like in the old days where everything was insured and replaceable. It will take years of breeding before there are enough horses. I won’t be surprised if motor transport comes back first. When is the last time you were on a horse?” he demanded.

  “Uh, I got to ride one when I was about twelve,” Eileen admitted. “It was at a riding stable with school mates. They promised me it was a pretty gentle horse.”

  The skeptical look he gave her suggested it wasn’t a good idea to pursue that idea.

  Arlo and Vic took turns on point. It was tiring and good to switch off if you had a qualified partner, Vic explained after they switched and he dropped back to walk with her. She was pulling a mostly empty wagon as far back as she could be and stay in sight. Mr. Mast brought up the rear pulling another wagon with a few supplies they would use up and a long-range weapon. He was older and slower and said he needed the extra time to reach cover being in the back would give him.

  “Arlo didn’t seem to be upset with me when it was his turn to drop back and walk with me,” Alice said.

  “Why would he be?” Vic asked.

  “Well, you know, the horse thing,” Alice said.

  “Alice, if you are still stewing on that, let it go. If Arlo didn’t want and intend to treat you very well, we wouldn’t even be on this expedition. You aren’t going to like me reminding you, but you are still a kid. He expects you not to know stuff. I expect you not to know stuff. It’s not because we think you are stupid or evil, it’s because you just don’t have a lot of experience.

  “He explained very nicely why we are walking instead of risking valuable horses. It’s easy to forgive you for not knowing that. The thing you need to know is this. He will be put out with you and form a much lower opinion of you if you keep asking why we aren’t riding and pushing the idea after you had explained to you why it’s not possible.”

  “Oh my goodness. I wouldn’t do that,” Alice said. “I’m already embarrassed I didn’t figure it out on my own and asked something stupid.”

  “You aren’t stupid. You’ll get better at figuring it out on your own. Just be aware some people never learn those lessons. They never grow up. You’ll have to learn to just say no to those kinds of folks. Some, there’s just no explaining it to them.”

  They walked along in silence for a way, Alice thinking on all that.

  “OK, some stuff I didn’t understand about my mom and dad and our relatives is starting to make sense now. I haven’t really thought about some of it in a long time. My mom’s family was always in trouble, always asking my folks for help. They’d call or beat on the door in the middle of the night. Every time that happened my folks would talk about moving away. Finally, they did.”

  Vic just acknowledged that with a nod and didn’t say any more until Arlo stopped and let them catch up to switch off again.

  * * *

  “April, I have something I am trying to investigate and finding it well beyond my capabilities,” Irwin confessed. “Is there any possibility you would slip my inquiry in with your other items of interest as a favor to me?”

  “I’m not sure, Irwin. You already owe me two ‘Big Ones’ and this is getting a little one-sided. What have you done to investigate on your own, and why does it have to be slipped in as you put it? That phrase makes me uncomfortable.”

  “I hoped you would slip it in among your other requests so it isn’t linked to me until I reveal it. All I’ve used so far are public records. The matter impacts Joel and his government. I’d like to be sure I’m the one taking the tale
to him if I decide it’s a real concern, or be able to withhold it entirely if I decide I don’t want to stake my reputation on it. If you regard Joel favorably it is something that should be supportive of him. I thought from our visit and how that went that he might have your favor. It’s something you might well have taken up yourself if it had come to your attention.”

  “You know I use the same intelligence people as Jeff and Heather?” April asked.

  “Yes, which is just an example of how many people will know if you are running a case for me openly, but I’m told you have your own sources too. Word among the worker bees and beam dogs is that you solicit random facts sent to your com code and pay good money for the bits you find useful. Though nobody can figure out exactly what will yield a payout. People are left wondering if it was the report that an unusually large shipment of filter media went to the Turnip, or that Jon had breakfast with the head of Takeda Pharmaceuticals that resulted in a hundred bits being dropped into their account. It’s the craziest system I’ve ever heard of, frankly.”

  April sighed. “You almost convince me to demand my reports be exclusive. But people love gossip so I doubt most of them would honor it. They’d rationalize telling their spouse or business partner as harmless. Look, I’ll tell you right up front that’s not how it works with our investigators. I never try to keep our agents in compartments, like Earth agencies. If they have no idea why they are investigating something, you get endless unrelated garbage in their reports. You entirely lose the value of their insights and initiative. I suppose with trillion-dollar budgets paying a hundred people to filter all the unrelated stuff out you can do that. It isn’t very efficient and the ugly truth is you still end having to trust somebody. We just are very selective and trust a few people from the start. I’m sure you know we trust Jan and Chen, but we don’t always know who they use, especially on Earth. We trust them to decide what to reveal to the people they handle directly. If you want us to find out something for you, figure as many as a dozen people are going to know what we are seeking. Besides, I already know the matter that would impact Joel involves the French National Bank,” April said.

  “How… could you possibly know that?” Irwin asked dismayed.

  “I’ve had an alert set for anything on Colombe since he convinced me over dinner he was prejudiced against Jeff and is a sneaky little weasel. His secretary just arranged for his wife’s secretary to do some very secure shipping of an item from Switzerland to be delivered to you personally. That was a sloppy insufficient cut-out. It’s being escorted on a doesn’t leave your sight basis, by an Earth Security firm which on its rough end tends to be equivalent to a mercenary outfit. Yet the manifest is impossible to keep secret if it’s not your private shuttle and people all the way. Their entire itinerary is searchable once you have one hard data point that it’s going to take place.

  “It is too unusual and crosses far too many desks not to leak somewhere. You have three shuttle services and two transfers. You have the lift mass, hazard classification, package dimensions, and the fact that two agents are escorting it to allow bathroom visits and such. Their time seniority with the company and the fact they are so paranoid they bought tickets for a third seat to carry safe drinks and food tells a bit more about the likely value. I had three separate reports something odd or valuable was being moved and ended up paying out three grams to the reporters, and a couple more grams to people they know, to keep the reason from being traceable if they compare notes.

  “Now, I have no doubt his secretary is paid well, but I doubt he has the sort of personal wealth to be doing this level of business or need this kind of security. So it is for his boss. The object of all this has to be precious metals or art of a value level to include things regarded as a national treasure. I know you offer that sort of secure storage, but in that case, it would be the secretary to the national archives or a cultural commission arranging the shipment. So a London Good bar or platinum ingot it is.”

  Irwin wanted to ask if that information came to her only by her private system of snoops and spies, or her shared assets, but doubted she’d answer. How could she filter all the flood of tips she solicited? She certainly didn’t have a trillion-dollar budget.

  “They haven’t even informed me when to expect its arrival,” Irwin complained.

  “And they shouldn’t,” April said. “That would give someone a precise time and place to set up an intercept.”

  “They should have just sent it like any normal item of freight with an oversized box to hide its density or carried by a single trusted courier as carry-on luggage,” Irwin said.

  “And there is proof you are smarter than Colombe,” April said.

  “So you are already looking into it on your own?” Irwin asked.

  “Yes, but our purposes may not be the same as yours. What do you want to accomplish, so we can tailor the gathering of information to serve that end?”

  “I want to make Joel aware if the head administrator of his national bank is crooked and stealing so he can avoid a huge scandal that will weaken his administration. Does it look that way to you?” he asked.

  “I can’t think of any other reason he would own and hide a small Swiss refining operation through his wife. But if you are going to be the one to break it to Joel, we want at least some credit for aiding the discovery. You’ve made it easier already, but I’d like you to tell me what else you know about this scheme.”

  “Monsieur Colombe promised to forward a four-hundred-ounce bar in earnest on the purchase of a residential cubic in Beta,” Irwin said. “He was blunt and careless in revealing he wishes to be beyond the reach of French law or Earth law in general. I could not see how that was an innocent requirement for an early retirement.”

  Irwin looked at her funny. “How has any of this made your investigation easier?”

  “Because, Irwin. Now we know you aren’t part of the conspiracy,” April said.

  * * *

  “Habitat National, this is the armed merchant Dionysus’ Chariot out of Central, Commander Johnson ID number 921-oo-8673. We are in a chasing approach from trans-lunar space. We should match the outside envelope of your control volume on a tangent in about twenty minutes. Requesting clearance to approach and dock on your mast. Please advise security we have twenty-four passengers requesting transit through your station to points on Earth, mostly European nations. We are retaining four passengers and crew to proceed on to Home. If you can arrange to process these passengers to release us to go on our way it would be very much appreciated. The only problem is they are Martians being involuntarily released. They should all show up in Earthside databases with biometric data, but they are carrying no ID.”

  “Dionysus’ Chariot, I show no flight plan for you. Are you arriving from Home?”

  “No sir, we are arriving from Mars surface direct. I didn’t request clearance to leave their control volume. We do not regard Mars as a friendly port, and Deimos that houses Mars local wasn’t even in my sky when I lifted, so I have no idea if they filed an exit report. The people we picked up are in distress and we regard them as refugees. That’s one reason I came to the Tur… to the Habitat National. France has a good reputation for properly processing refugees.”

  Deloris gave him a silent thumbs up and made a face for his laying on the praise. It would ruin that to fail to help them on open public records since traffic control was all done in the clear.

  “Indeed, we have specific instructions for us to notify security for such events. I thank you for giving us numbers so we can arrange officers and guides to meet your people at the lock. I have the first dock port open if you’d care to take that slot. It will have a red flashing beacon. Would you please escort your people or send a representative to meet security at the lock?”

  “We have two security officers of our own aboard who facilitated the loading. They’ll control the egress and know how to interact and help with their peers I’m sure,” Johnson said. “Thank you. I’ll take that port and chec
k again from the edge of your control volume. Dionysus’ Chariot, end transmission.”

  “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, don’t you?” Deloris said sweetly.

  “Indeed, you can with some people. If they allow it. The first load to ISSII April didn’t try. She dumped the passengers on them and scooted before they realized we didn’t just drop something in the UPS bin. April didn’t reveal to me until after that she’d been warned to expect some attitude out of the new head of security there. If she wants to take that risk as an owner that’s fine. I’d have played it straight even if they held me up a day or two. That would be on them not me. They can play games with your license.”

  Deloris just nodded. Johnson had been painted a wild man to her, but not in everything. Why hadn’t April told him what she intended? Was she testing him?

  * * *

  Arlo and Vic switched off again, Vic taking the lead. Alice was comfortable with Arlo now and relaxed, not wary. He looked at her with brief puzzlement. Something was different but he wasn’t sure what. Alice wasn’t about to explain since that would involve bringing up everything that she wanted to let go now.

  They lost sight of Vic around a curve and he was partway down a straight stretch when they came around the curve. Suddenly he squatted in the roadway. There was no cover anywhere close. Far ahead another figure came from around the next curve and continued a few steps toward them before seeing Vic. He too froze briefly, though he didn’t squat. The downhill side was rugged and steep. The distant figure picked the other way, scrambling up the face of the road cut and disappeared over the edge and out of sight.

  Vic retreated about halfway back to them before he stopped and hunkered down again scanning above him. He was aware the man might be visible again partway up the hill, or he might turn parallel to the road and continue towards them. Either one could put him in an excellent position to fire on Vic. He did neither, eventually appearing way up the hill near the crest, still motivating to get far away from them. Vic couldn’t see him from below the cut so Arlo waved his hat and started up again to move forward.